Our experience has shown that using collaborative processes can lead to fairer and more creative, inclusive, and effective solutions. Our team of staff, faculty, consultants, subject matter experts, and students are able to craft and design mediation, negotiation, training, assessment and many other services to suit your needs. Explore our expertise below for more ideas on how we can work together.
- Facilitation
Whether you are seeking to host a one-day event, a long-term community engagement, regulatory negotiation, or anything in between IEN provides expert design to help you meet your goals in a way that is inclusive, responsive, adaptive, and effective. Don't hesitate to reach out to us if you have questions or want to chat about whether we're a good match for your needs.
- Training
IEN has decades of experience customizing training for your group's specific needs. We would be happy to develop a training or workshop to address your goals and build the skills your people need. In addition to customized training, we also offer several "tried and true" flagship trainings. Find out more on our Trainings page.
- Research
Much of IEN's work is a form of community-based research, sometimes short-term with very focused goals, and sometimes more long-term interdisciplinary academic research projects. Our research takes many forms, including:
- Situation assessments (what are the issues, challenges, opportunities)
- Stakeholder surveys and analysis
- Qualitative interviews
- Focus groups
- Stakeholder engagement (numerous forms)
- Community workshops
- Symposia
- Collaborative summits
- Technical advisory groups
- Collaboratively developed research protocols
- Issue briefs
- Equity
Our work involves deep engagement with a variety of institutions, neighborhoods, and cultures, who may find themselves struggling with conflicts old and new. When individuals and communities are not authentically engaged in decisions that affect them, systemic disparities can be perpetuated, new harms can be created, and funding and effort can be wasted. IEN defines equity as “Fair treatment, equal access, attending to socio-historical structures and lived context – particularly focused on justice for historically underserved or underrepresented groups in a specific context“ (University of Virginia’s Office for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion). Equity may also be understood as meeting the needs of everyone to share opportunity, benefits, and burdens fairly. IEN specializes in bringing groups together in discussions where we strive to ensure participants (and we) are:
- Acting from a place of compassion;
- Creating inclusive, brave, and safe spaces for deliberation;
- Practicing cultural humility, awareness, and responsiveness;
- Committing to continual cultural learning and action;
- Supporting sustainable and equitable collaboration and decision-making.
